All part of the job
by S'Fie
Summary: If someone had told him twenty years ago he would be carrying sanitary napkins, tampons and infertility potions around as a matter of course, he'd probably hexed them six ways to Sunday
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own any of it. All rights belong to J. K. Rowling and her publishers.

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Severus sat down wearily in his comfortable chair in front of the hearth. He was so tired. He should start reading the sixth-years' essays that were waiting on the coffee table for him, but he laid his head back and closed his eyes for a bit. Soon he heard the welcome sound of a house-elf popping into the room, the clincking of a tea- tray being set on the table.

"Thanks, Pisa," he said to the elf, as he opened his eyes and reached for the tea. As always, he idly wondered whether her first owner was Italian. For some reason, he never got up to asking her.

"Pi..," He got interrupted by a knock on the door. Severus groaned silently, couldn't they leave him in peace for just one night? He dismissed the elf absentmindedly and got up and opened the door.

"Yes, Mr. Mcleod?" He looked the sixth-year prefect over. No carefully blank face, or tremors in his hands, so the reason he was standing in front of his door at half past 11 o'clock in the evening was not disastrous. Yet.

Quintus Mcleod adressed his Head of House, carefully refusing to make eye-contact, without looking shifty. Looking shifty in front of Severus Snape was a Very Bad Idea.

"Miss Maris is having trouble in the girls' bathroom, sir," he said.

"Is that trouble or Trouble, Mr. Mcleod?" Somehow, Severus managed to convey the capital in the second trouble without any effort. Quintus took a moment to admire that fact before answering.

"No idea, sir. She's locked herself in and refuses to speak to anybody. According to her friends she's been there for the past three hours." Severus closed his eyes for a minute. Miss Maris, oldest daughter of a very aristocratic pure-blood family, was at this moment 12 years old and the school year had started only a couple of weeks ago. Severus had a pretty good idea what would be the problem. Inwardly he cursed those pureblood parents who believed raising their children was a waste of their time.

"Give me a minute, Mr. Mcleod," Snape sighed and half-closed the door. He went to his desk and opened the first drawer. In it was a beautiful clock, with words like 'catch wayward S.', 'comfort homesick S.' and 'get S. out of Trouble' instead of numbers. A couple of years ago, Severus had gone to visit the Weasley family and seen their family clock on the wall. Every family member had a clock-hand pointing to words like 'at home', 'at work' or 'in peril'. Of course, it was impossible to put as many clock-hands as there were Slytherins on the clock so he'd adapted the idea. His clock had only one clock-hand, and at the moment it pointed at 'give S. the Talk' Severus groaned inwardly, closed the drawer and followed the boy back to the Slytherin Common Room.

There were still three seventh-year boys draped over the couches and chairs in various stadia of tiredness. One well-placed scowl and a 'Bed, now' solved that problem nicely. Snape entered the girls hallway and took the stairs to the second years' hall. At the end of it a gaggle of four second-year girls was standing outside the bathroom door, looking anxious and apparently trying to get 'Patty' to come out.

"Could one of you please tell me what happened?" He asked the girls, who looked up at him with hopeful faces.

"We don't know, Professor," one said. The girl looked ready to burst out in tears. Snape hurriedly looked at the others, hoping to prevent any waterworks from breaking out that way.

"We were getting ready to go to bed, and Patty went to the bathroom and then she just locked herself in and she won't come out again!" Another girl, this one a bit calmer said. "We didn't know what to do, so we asked prefect Mcleod, who tried to talk her out, but she wouldn't even answer him." Yet another girl said this in an aggrieved tone. She obviously believed miss Maris should have jumped to obey the Prefect. Snape made a mental note to talk to her about the merit of a healthy distrust of authority. She was Slytherin, for Merlin's sake, any authority figure, except for Snape himself of course, was to be treated with healthy dose of scepsis.

"After half an hour, he decided to get you." The girl ended her tale.

Inwardly Severus cursed Mcleod. The girls should have gone to Tabitha Merrick, the female prefect of Slytherin. But, no, somehow they managed to ask the only male in Slytherin, who didn't have a clue what it could be, and who wouldn't even think to ask his female counterpart for help. Mcleods family were beyond conservative, they believed in total separation of the sexes, with the womenfolk living in a separate wing. Severus secretly believed the boys' parents had managed to procreate without even touching each other.

"Has she said anything? Did she look a bit off the weather these past days?" He asked the girls.

"Yes, she's been complaining about stomach ache," a shy girl in the back said quietly. Mcleod suddenly looked uneasy, apparently he was now being hit by the clue train. Broadside. Not even a childhood of brainwashing by his prudish family was a match for the formidable power that was Poppy Pomfrey's Sexual Education Lessons. Even now, Snape remembered his embarrassment at seeing those _very_ detailed diagrams being projected on the Infirmary wall. Unfortunately, Sex Ed was only given in third year.

"Uh, I'm sorry sir, I didn't have any idea. Shall I get Tabitha?" Mcleod started blabbing, all the while turning an unbecoming red in the face.

The girls looked in hopeful confusion at Severus. He sighed. He always was a sucker for puppy-dog eyes, at least, if those puppy-dog eyes came from four little girls of his own house. Besides if he backed out now, it would be known to the whole House by evening tomorrow. He made that mistake the first year he taught at Hogwarts, and paid dearly for it. The Slytherin girls had been sniggering behind his back for months.

Now, after fifteen years being Head of Slytherin House, Severus prided himself in being able to handle everything teenagers could possibly throw at him.

"No, Mr. Mcleod, let her sleep, I'll handle this. Please make sure miss Maris' friends get into their beds."

Like a veteran going into battle, Severus started checking the most secret pocket of his robe for the necessary armament. If someone had told him twenty years ago he would be carrying sanitary napkins, tampons and infertility potions around as a matter of course, he'd probably hexed them six ways to Sunday, and poisoned their dog out of spite.

"Miss Maris, I'm coming in," Snape said. He tapped his wand against the doorjamb to override the girl's locks. He shored up his mental shields, breathed deeply, squared his shoulders manfully, and opened the door.


	2. Chapter 2

Not mine of course. Thanks everyone for your nice reviews!

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The door opened into an antechamber with sinks on the left wall, and little closets for the accoutrements young women find absolutely necessary to use or wear before showing their faces, on the right. To be honest, Severus had no idea what was in those closets and completely lacked any ambition to find out.

To the left and right, past the sinks and closets, were doorways to the toilets and showers.

"Miss Maris? Where are you?" Severus called. He tried to use his 'understanding teacher'-voice. Unfortunately it sounded more like his 'I'm quiet annoyed so hurry up and answer'-voice. He heard someone taking a shaky breath, and trying to suppress the whimper that is the natural reaction of every child under fourteen to his presence.

Severus smirked slightly and headed to the left doorway. The last door in the row of stalls was closed. Severus knew better than to ask miss Maris to open the door. This was a conversation he'd rather have without the possibility of someone seeing his face. He conjured himself a comfortable armchair and searched through his pockets for a flask of Firewhiskey. For medicinal purposes, of course.

"Miss Maris, would you please tell me why you have locked yourself in the bathroom?" Severus asked calmly.

He waited. There came no answer, but Severus could hear the sound of hurried breathing and crackling tissue. The child was probably trying to wipe her face clean of tears and snot with the toilet paper. Severus scowled in distaste. He conjured some nice soft tissues and threw them over the stall door.

A surprised gasp and a watery 'thank you' followed.

"Miss Maris?" Severus prodded, after sufficient time for face-wiping and discreet nose-blowing had passed.

"Uhm, I'm ... There...I'm bleeding!" Miss Maris practically wailed. Severus winced at the volume and poured himself some whiskey in a transfigured glass.

"Where are you bleeding exactly, Miss Maris?" Severus asked. Another round of uhms and sniffing followed.

"Uhm, well...ah..in my, my pants. And it won't stop. And it hurts." Miss Maris began crying again.

Snape closed his eyes exasperated. It was worse than he thought. The silly girl didn't even have an idea of what was happening. Severus took a fortifying swallow of his Firewhiskey.

Inwardly Snape praised his own tendencies to walk around with more potions in his pockets than the common apothecary had in his shop. He picked out a mild pain reliever and rolled it under the door.

"Two sips only, Miss Maris, and you can keep the bottle for tomorrow morning and evening."

Again Severus waited. If there was one thing he'd learned in his years as a Head of House, it was the fact that some conversations couldn't be rushed. Not if you didn't want to spend the rest of the night comforting a distraught child. And the rest of the following week, explaining your actions to each and every female faculty member, Trelawney included. Severus still shuddered at the thought of the lectures he'd gotten on sensitivity and tact from a woman who'd make students distraught with her predictions of their death _every week_.

After that blunder, he'd asked Filius how _he_ handled giving his younger female students this particular lecture. Filius had looked at him in surprise and informed him blissfully of the fact that _his_ students already knew all they needed to know, and if they didn't, the problem was easily solved with a book or two. At that moment Severus had envied Filius and wished his own students were more eager to learn from books. Then again, if they were, they would have probably taken over Hogwarts by now.

After another five minutes of twiddling his thumbs, the sniffing at the other side of the door had stopped entirely. Severus shifted a bit in his seat, swallowed another mouthful of whiskey, took a deep breath and started.

"Miss Maris, what you are experiencing at the moment, is a completely natural process called menstruation." He hoped the girl had heard the word before, from her female relatives or her older friends.

It stayed silent. Then a timid: "What is that, sir?" Of course, she hadn't. Sometimes Severus really wanted to hex those blasted parents who could happily decapitate their house-elves but shrank away from the thought of explaining the facts of life to their own offspring.

"When a girl reaches her teenage years, her body starts to change in order to be able to produce children. One of these changes is the start of the menstrual cycle. Every month you will experience a period of bleeding, probably three to five days." Severus hoped he could get away with giving only the bare basics. He had no intention whatsoever to start explaining the birds and the bees at, he looked at his wrist, ten to midnight, in a chilly bathroom.

"I'll have this every month?" Miss Maris asked appalled.

"I'm afraid so, yes." Don't ask, don't ask, he chanted in his head, even while he knew it was inevitable.

"But why?" Severus heaved a sigh. This was the tricky part.


	3. Chapter 3

Again, not my property and not making any money. I'm glad many of you liked my little story. Thank you for those nice reviews.

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Because Mother Nature is a vindictive bitch, Severus answered in his head. Out loud he said: "It a part of the human reproductive cycle. Every month, your body produces an egg, that could potentially grow into a baby." He carefully left out the sticky parts, Poppy could handle those. "Your womb readies itself for that baby but if that doesn't happen, your body gets rid of the unnecessary parts, hence the bleeding." Not a very detailed explanation, but hopefully enough.

Miss Maris stayed silent for a moment. She was probably carefully dissecting his words. Time to give the girl something else to think about, before she could ask about the baby part.

"Miss Maris, I'm going to give you some sanitary napkins. You put those in your knickers, they'll catch the bleeding."

He took some napkins out of his pocket and shoved them under the door. It stayed quiet again. Severus waited for the inevitable question, while Miss Maris studied the napkins.

"Professor?" It was said very quietly.

"Yes Miss Maris?"

"What is the spell for removing blood out of clothing?" Severus pumped his fist in the air in triumph. The timely introduction of the napkins had saved his ass, again.

"Pisa!" he called. The house elf immediately popped in. The house-elf didn't even blink at the sight of him sitting in an armchair in the girls' bathroom.

"Please, collect Miss Maris' sleepwear and clean underwear," he said with as much dignity as possible in this situation.

"Yes, sir." she said quite solemnly and popped out. Of course, there was no way Severus would teach the girl the potent removing spell you'd need to get blood out of delicate fabrics, you'd never know what the little blighters in his house would try to use it for.

Severus used the few moments the house-elf needed to take another swallow of his firewiskey, and banish the glass back to his chambers. The house-elf popped back with the requested items.

"Here you go, Miss Maris." Severus said and shoved the pajamas and underwear under the door.

"Thank you, sir" Miss Maris whispered.

Severus could hear the relief in the girls' voice. He took a peppermint and put it in his mouth to dispell the smell of alcohol and banished the chair. He waited until the rustling ended.

"Miss Maris? Are you ready to come out now?" He asked patiently.

He heard the toilet flushing and the lock of the door clicking. Miss Maris stood there with her eyes glued to the floor in front of her, looking _very_ discomfited. This was the most delicate stage. Severus had to make sure the girl would be able to go to class without turning red from embarrassment every time she had to look at him. It would only give food for gossip, and sooner or later those nosy, interfering harpies who called themselves his colleagues would hear about this. Severus wasn't planning on having his child-rearing abilities discussed and dissected in the staffroom again. Once was enough for a lifetime of mortification, especially after Poppy suggested he should loan her schematics to make copies.

"You can put the bloodied clothes in the hamper over there," he said casually.

The girl timidly followed his finger to the hamper. Severus waited until she had turned her back to him.

"Miss Maris," he said sharply. The girl jumped almost out of her skin. "Where are your slippers? You can't go walking on these cold floors barefoot." The girl looked at him in surprise, not believing that her housemaster was getting irritated over ordinary things like slippers at a time like this. Severus transfigured a spare paper from his pocket into two fluffy bunny slippers.

"Put these on," he practically shoved the slippers at her and started muttering about colds and the thoughtlessness of children. He could practically see the tension drain out of the girl like water. A grouchy housemaster muttering about dunderheads and idiots was familiar terrain for every Slytherin. Soon the child had to suppress a smile at some of his more colourful descriptions.

"Please follow me, Miss Maris, it is long past your bedtime." Severus led the girl to her dorm room. He quietly opened the door, and illuminated the way to Miss Maris' bed with a wordless Lumos. The girl didn't lose any time crawling under the blankets. Severus made sure she was completely tucked in, discreetly put some more napkins on her nightstand next to the pain reliever, and quietly left the dorms.

Tomorrow morning he'd have a quiet word with Miss Merrick, to talk to the girl about obtaining the necessary supplies. Now, Severus wanted to share his displeasure at having this kind of talk for the umpteenth time, and he just knew who he'd share it with.

* * *

Severus scowled at the gargoyle in front of the Headmasters' office. The gargoyle scowled back. Severus upped the strength and added a glare for good measure.

"He's sleeping," the gargoyle informed Severus reluctantly. Severus smiled nastily.

"Sugarplums." he purred. The gargoyle had no other choice but to move out of the way.

Severus stepped on the rotating stairs. They were slower than normally, giving the Headmaster the time to wake up and enter his office.

"Come in, Severus," Albus called sleepily. Severus entered and looked at the Headmaster. Albus was wearing a dressing gown in an unusually subdued blue. Apparently even Albus Dumbledore didn't like garish colours at one in the morning on a weekday.

"What can I do for you Severus?" Albus asked, looking wearily at his most volatile teacher.

"I want a raise." Severus said. Albus gave him an incredulous look.

"You woke me up to ask for a raise?" he asked almost indignantly.

"No, I woke you up to inform you that a raise of at least 5% is the only thing that will stop me from sending the next, near-hysterical, 12-year-old girl to _you_ for an explanation about the facts of nature."

Albus' face took on a greenish hue.

"Done," he said, "But how am I going to explain it to the Board?"

"Tell them it's hazard pay for dealing with the volatile situations that are a part of a teachers' job in a school full of hormone-ridden, magical teenagers." Severus said, "You could even include statistics." he added sarcastically. Severus settled himself in the chair in front of Albus' desk.

"When are you going to give in and reschedule Poppy's lessons in second year instead of third?" he asked, "We've been asking this every year at the start of term. Even Minerva and Pomona agree, and _they_ don't have to deal with the added embarrassment of explaining the use of ovaries when you don't have them yourself."

"You know the Board is against it, Severus. They want the children to be at least thirteen before they hear about sex and reproduction." Both men studiously refused to look each other in the eye at the uncomfortable topic.

"The Board are a bunch of old wizards who haven't been confronted with menstrual cycles since they left school a century ago." Severus snarked, "Perhaps we should send them some Pensieve memories to refresh their rotting brains. Or better yet, Poppy's schematics."

"Severus!" Albus rebuked him mildly.

"Want to watch the memory?" Severus answered waspishly.

"No, I'm sure you did a great job," Albus said hurriedly, "I'll draft the request for a raise in the morning."

"Good, I'm sure they'll react positively." Severus turned around and swept out of the office. He was sure Albus wouldn't be able to sleep now, thinking about the implicit threat of Severus sending his Slytherin students to his office if he didn't get Severus a raise. Severus smirked, satisfied at another job well done.

END


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